The Sorting Hat's Choice
by SarahFe
Summary: What if the sorting hat decided to shake things up a little - or a lot - at Hogwarts? Infused with the magics of the Founders, he ensures that Hogwarts will not be as it's always been... not with Harry Potter starting this year. I don't own HP!
1. The Hat Makes Up It's Mind

A/N – I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 1

Albus Dumbledore sat in his office attempting to reason with an old battered hat, but it was proving to be an fruitless attempt. The Sorting Hat was refusing to sort this year.

The headmaster sat hunched over in his chair, hands clasped together on his desk. He knew that just putting students randomly together was not a good idea. After a few minutes of silence, he sighed.

"How should I assign students to dorms, then?" he asked the hat. "Surely you don't mean me to do it alphabetically, or some other equally meaningless manner?"

"Of course not," the hat chuckled. "I will assign them all to older students, the ones who will best guide them. Seventh years are the exception, as most of them are quite mature enough to not need guidance. They will live in a large dorm, two students to a room."

Albus could have sworn he felt the shifts in the castle's magic as it shaped itself to meet the founder's – through means of the hat -wishes. "And the rest of the students?" he asked, resigned to the changes. After all, if Hogwarts itself was changing, then it must be for the best.

"They will be much more spread out throughout the castle. Three pairs of students to a suite, the suites will all include three bedrooms with desks and other necessary items, plus a small common room," the hat explained. "I've been thinking about this for a long time, headmaster. There is no other way to eliminate this silly house rivalry. Of course, it will not be fully successful until the new first years are graduating."

The headmaster nodded briefly. "Better late than never, I suppose. And how am I supposed to decide which students should share a classroom?"

"That can be done by alphabetizing, headmaster. Your teachers are quite competent to handle any group of students. I'd recommend three study groups per year so there are not too many students," the hat advised.

"Very well. Thank you for your kindness in at least giving me a sufficient amount of time to make these changes," the headmaster said, placing the hat back up on the shelf. "I assume you will still be needing to look into the students minds to place them properly."

"Of course," the hat murmured before going limp and silent.

"What a mess," the headmaster said to himself. "Naturally the hat would choose to do this the year Harry Potter is due to start school. I wonder who he'll be paired with."


	2. The Staff Meeting

A/N – I do not own Harry Potter

Chapter 2 – The Staff Meeting

One week later, once Albus Dumbledore had worked out the details of the new class schedules, he made an announcement during breakfast that there would be a staff meeting later that evening after dinner in the teacher's lounge. Of course, there were two teachers who were rarely at meals, and to them he delivered the message in person.

Severus Snape was busy brewing a potion, just as Albus expected, and was not pleased that he would be torn away from it for something as unimportant as a staff meeting. Only the mollification that Gryffindors and Slytherins would no longer have classes together stopped him from refusing to go altogether.

Trelawney was staring into a cup of tea leaves, making mostly obvious or false predictions about the coming year. "Headmaster Dumbledore! I have seen great things coming in Hogwart's future," she exclaimed with a flourish of her pink shawl.

Albus smiled gently and nodded, "Indeed there are, Professor Trelawney, indeed there are. As I am sure you have also foreseen, there will be a staff meeting after dinner in the teacher's lounge to ensure all the teachers are aware of the changes, if you would be so kind to join us?"

"The stars have foretold that I will attend tonight, and so I have made no other plans," she confirmed.

* * *

"Excellent, thank you. I will see you then," the headmaster said before leaving the divination teacher to gaze into the beyond.

"Perhaps some of you have felt the castle's magic changing dramatically earlier today," Professor Dumbledore opened, looking around the assembled teachers and noting the few nodding heads.

"Hogwarts will be very different this term than what any of us are used to, and I assure you that I am just as new to this concept as any of you," he assured them, twinkling eyes on full display.

Muttering broke out amongst the teachers, speculating on what exactly this new concept was, until a few minutes later Severus snapped,  
"Are you going to tell us, headmaster, or are you going to make us guess all night?"

"As of this morning, the Sorting Hat has decided to abolish the house system..."  
For two hours Dumbledore answered every question his staff had, thankful that he had spent as much time preparing for this meeting as he had.

Minerva in particular had been very picky on the details on how, exactly, this would affect classes.

Flitwick was concerned about how the upper years would react to the change, and how much house loyalties would affect the new pairs and groups.

In the end, the teachers, except for Snape (who declined to give his opinion), and Trelawney (who claimed to have known about it all along), verbally agreed that while this was certainly a needed change that they believed would be helpful, that it would take a lot of work.

To close the meeting, Dumbledore gave a reminder to all the teachers,

"Remember, Harry Potter will be starting this year."


End file.
